Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Aquarium Adventure

Since I have two of my very best friends living close to me (Lisa and Caryn) we've decided to draw up a Bucket List of sorts to make sure we get everything done we want to do this summer. One of those things on the list was to go the Living Aquarium in Sandy, which we just did this past Saturday.

It was awesome. I know I'm 22 and maybe shouldn't be excited at going to a zoo of sorts, but it was really cool. It had exhibits of wildlife from Utah, deep ocean fish and other animals, and a petting zoo. We saw jellyfish and coral and rainbow trout and sting rays, and even a few small sharks.

This picture is from the Deseret News, Ryan Long took it.

We learned that coral are considered animals (although Caryn already knew that) and and in one aquarium in Georgia, 800 million gallons of water are cycled through every day. That was probably the most interesting part - watching the movie on people who take care of that aquarium in Georgia. Most were incredibly attached to the animals and talked about them like children, which I doubt any of them had - although I can't be positive. Favorite quote: "I don't eat my lunch or dinner until I know the animals get their lunch and dinner." Psychotic behavior?

The petting zoo was cool - although we could only touch the bat rays, not the fish. They felt like soft, squishy, semi-slimy foam. We also touched some spiky star fish and sea cucumbers. Yes, we put a bunch of hand sanitizer all over our arms afterward.

We took some awesome pictures in the little nooks and crannies of a kind of kid's playground - the best was a crab that had his claws just open enough to hold cards.

The gift shop was pretty cool as well - I got a smashed penny with the Aquarium logo and a shark on it, and a tiny dolphin I'm going to put in my car near my dashboard - to copy Caryn and her dinosaur and clown fish on her dash. They also had sea monkeys and stuffed animals and rubber animals and puzzles and balls and jewelry.

All in all it was definitely worth $8 and I would encourage everyone to visit it - and to see my slideshow of the photos we took a couple posts above this one.